If you've found my website, or any of my other hosted websites to be somewhat slow lately, you weren't alone.  I've noticed my internet access (same pipe) was just dragging.  It appears that my primary network switch had decided it no longer wanted to route packets in any optimal fashion.  The result was numerous TCP packet errors and retransmissions.

I've temporarily swapped it out for a slower switch that appears to not be causing these problems.  Guess it's time to order a new GbE switch.

It sure is nice to be able to download at >1MB/s again.

UPDATE: Thanks to the managed switch I picked up to replace my previous GbE switch, I found out this wasn’t a problem with my desktop at all.  The network card or cable running to my firewall is apparently having issues with running at GbE speed (hence why replacing the switch with a 100Mbps switch fixed the problem).  I’ve downgraded the port the firewall connects with to 100MB and everything is working dandy.  Perhaps I need to swap out network cords or NICs on the firewall machine.